Absence of Figure explores the relationship between the body, clothing and identity through imagery taken from fashion magazines. Removing the models digitally from their clothing, I isolated the garments before translating these altered images into paintings.
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Without the bodies that originally gave them form, the clothes become ambiguous, sculptural shapes. Folds, shadows and gestures remain, suggesting the presence of a figure while withholding the person who once occupied the image.
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The series began my ongoing interest in what remains communicable when identity is removed from the figure, and in the potential for fabric, shape and gesture to carry meaning in its absence.